Dreams, a CharlesErik Story
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: Some feelings never change.


Title: "Dreams"  
Author: Kat Lee  
Rating: R/M  
Summary: Some feelings never change.  
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Mutants screamed all around him. Charles' wheelchair whipped this way and that as he tried to go to his students, but he could reach none of them in time. "PROFESSOR!" Charles looked up as Cyclops screamed at him. A Sentinel's giant, purple hand bared down upon him, but before the horrible robot could touch him, Wolverine jumped between them.

His adamantium claws should have made short work for the robot, but instead, the Sentinel closed his fingers around Logan's short body in a grip so tight that Charles could hear Wolverine's bones breaking. He screamed as the hand sucked him into it; three claws were the last Charles saw before Wolverine was smashed into nothingness. Charles screamed for his student.

Female screams whipped his head toward where Storm and Jean Grey were doing their best to fight the army of Sentinels, but like Logan's claws before them, Storm's lightning bolts seemed to have little to no effect on the robots. Charles' blood ran cold inside of him when the Sentinels actually started to laugh.

Enormous footsteps shook the Earth as Master Mold came forward. He squished Bishop, Archangel, and Psylocke under one foot and Cable and Domino underneath another. "THE WEATHER WITCH IS MINE!" Charles tried to reach out to protect his two most cherished X-Women, but there was so little he could do against the Sentinels. "RUN!" he screamed, but they stood their ground, just as he'd taught them to do. Storm whipped up a hurricane, but Master Mold stepped right through it and onto her and Jean.

He marched on, laughing and leaving their crumpled bodies barely visible in the earth. The ground lurched up. Charles looked wildly around him as trees and buildings fell into the quaking earth. He realized, with sudden, terrifying clarity, that the Earth was dying as its mother, and one time Goddess, already had.

"NO! NO! NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!" he screamed but could barely hear his own yells for all the dying screams around him. A wailing howl broke out. He turned toward the sound and saw Moira and Rahne as they gasped for their last, struggling breaths. They were untouched by the Sentinels; a virus ate them, instead, from the inside out. Moira died in her adopted daughter's arms. Rahne's body fell on top of hers, weeping, and then she, too, laid still.

"NO! NO! NNNNNOOOOOOO!" Was that his own screams or another of his students? Charles could no longer tell the difference as he continued whipping around and seeing another of his children fall with every turn.

"PROFESSOR!"

"SCOTT!" Charles cried. He raced toward him, but a Sentinel's blast shot straight into his face. Scott's ruby quartz glasses fell as his head split up, revealing the blood and brains inside.

"Professor!" Scott cried. "You let this happen!" Tears poured down both of their cheeks. "How could you let this happen?!"

"Charles." Charles turned toward the smooth voice and found his one time lover, Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, for years now better known as Magneto, holding out a gloved hand to him. Erik's eyes were as sad, haunted, and full of tears as his own as he reached for him. "I warned you this would happen, Charles, but you would not listen. We can have no peace with the humans for they will not allow it. Look around you. All of your X-Men are dead now; you and I are two of the only three mutants left alive."

"No - "

"You know it is truth." Charles' body raised into the air to hover next to Magnus. He looked down around them and saw, through his tears, that Erik was right. All of his X-Men, every child he had ever loved, every mutant he had ever tried to help, every life he had saved were all destroyed down on the Earth below their feet.

"Join me, Charles. Join me now before it's too late." Erik's hand stretched further toward the old, sad mutant. "Join me while we can still avenge your beloved X-Men. Join me while we still have a chance to live."

"No," Charles whispered, and then, more loudly, he shouted, "NO!" He looked, through his tears, at the man he had never once stopped loving, no matter how times they had each tried to kill the other. "No," he said calmly again. "I'm sorry, Erik, but you know I can not."

Erik gazed sadly at him. "There are some feelings that will never change. _You'll_ never change." His eyes hardened. His tears ceased. He grew solemn again, and his chin rose in determination, as it always whenever he was being stubborn since Charles had first met him.

"Very well." Magneto turned from him, held his hands out into the air crackling with energy, and made fists. Every Sentinel was immediately ripped apart. Where Charles had failed, where he had let all of his children be defeated by the monsters mankind had made to destroy them, Erik succeeded without ever touching a single one of the robots or having a hair fall out of place.

He turned back to Charles, his accusation clear in his handsome face and the sensual, blue eyes that had haunted every one of Charles' dreams since the first time they had kissed. "You could have helped," he told him and disappeared.

Charles had no time to react as another voice screamed at him, "PROFESSOR!" He turned to see Rogue flying at him, tears streaming from her emerald green eyes. "HOW COULD YA?! HOW COULD YA LET 'EM ALL DIE AN' NOT EVEN TRY T' SAVE HIM?! I TRUSTED Y'ALL! WE TRUSTED YA! AH THOUGHT YOU WERE GONNA SAVE US, BUT YOU MIGHT AS WELL'VE KILLED US YOAHSELF!"

She flew at him and then through him as Charles woke in the real world. An alarm was going off, he realized, that was not his clock. He rose in bed and struggled into his wheelchair. There was another life to be saved, or perhaps it was time to save the whole world yet again. But for what? How long would it be before one or another of his nightmares became real? The one he'd just had would not, but he dreamed so often of losing his students and had already lost so many dear children.

He looked to Jean's picture on his nightstand, picked it up, and traced her smiling face with still slightly shaking fingers. How many more had to die before his dream could be realized? How many more mutants and humans both had to be killed in the wake of prejudice before their species would stop fighting? Would the war ever ceased? Would it ever be won? Would mutants ever be able to live in peace if they did not conquer the humans, as Magneto thought was the only way for them to survive happily?

Were all the sacrifices that had already been made, all the lives that had already been taken, for naught? Had none of them made a difference? Would they ever make a difference? Would he ever be able to save his children, or would he be forced to watch them all die? Would they all die because of him and their belief in the dream he had started?

Should he have not started the dream? Should he have gone with Magnus when he'd offered for him to come along with him and rule the world together? Could there ever be happiness for his children, for him? Should he leave them? Would that help them, or were they already condemned to die for his dream? Would they have been better off if he had never come into their lives?

Movement just outside of his window caught the corner of Charles' sad, blue eyes. He placed the picture of his first, female student back down onto his nightstand and wheeled to the window. He looked out just in time to see the corner of a long, purple cape billowing away in the breeze. Erik had been there, watching him. Charles felt both warm and cold at that realization, warm at the thought that his love still cared for him, even if their dreams always kept them apart, and terrifyingly cold at the thought that his students' greatest enemy had been so close while they slept. He could have killed any of them as easily as he had destroyed the Sentinels in Charles' dream.

"COME BACK HERE, MAGNETO, AND FIGHT!"

Charles looked down at Wolverine's thundering yell and saw his X-Men rushing out to meet his lover. He gazed at each of them in turn: Wolverine, who was so much more now than the savage animal dressed as a soldier he had been when Charles had first recruited him; Storm, who was both no longer worshipped as a Goddess or alone on the streets of Cairo, stealing food just to survive; Cyclops, who had not been taken by Mister Sinister when he'd been just a mere slip of a child; Gambit, who was trying so hard to be a hero to make up for the deaths he had inadvertently helped to cause; Rogue, who had found a family and love at last; Nightcrawler, who would have died at the hands of an angry, prejudiced mob had Charles not reached him when he had; Psylocke, who had finally found herself; Angel, who was so much more than his father's money could have ever made him; and Bishop, who was living his childhood dream of fighting alongside the real X-Men while trying to keep a future that none of them wanted from happening.

Magneto's words came back to Charles at the night breeze. _"There are some feelings that will never change."_ Despite the danger of the situation and the horribleness of his nightmare, Charles smiled.

"WAIT UP, GUYS!" He saw Jubilee running to catch up to the rest of the team, and in her, he saw the modern youth of all mutantkind. She had been fighting to survive on her own before the X-Men had come into her life and doing a justifiably good job of it, but she had been scared, alone, and with little knowledge of her powers. Now, she was just as much a hero, and an X-Man, as any of the rest of them.

Charles headed to join his family, his heart swelling with knowledge. No matter what happened, no matter what future or dreams did come to pass, every one of his children were not worse off because they knew him. They were better for knowing him. They had come together as a family, and no matter what else the humans did to them, the feelings of being loved and cared for and being together as they were now, so much more than a team - a _family_ - were things that no one would ever be able to take from them. Charles thanked God as he joined his children on the battlefield that there were some feelings that would never change, and he hoped, asked, and prayed, again, for a future that would be bright and full of love for them all.

**The End**


End file.
